“You’ll probably see us roll that out some time in the first half of next year,” Sloan, 56, said Wednesday during an interview at Wells Fargo’s Toronto office. “It might be a bit sooner or a bit later.”

Wells Fargo, the second-largest bank by deposits in Charlotte, has been studying an online automated investing platform to supplement the bank’s existing wealth-management offerings, Sloan said. The San Francisco-based lender’s wealth businesses include its Abbot Downing unit for ultra-rich clients, a brokerage with financial advisers, licensed bankers in branches for mass-affluent customers and an online trading platform, he said.

“What we don’t have in that lineup is a robo-advising option,” Sloan said. “I don’t think it’s fundamentally going to change the investment business, but for a segment of our customer base they would like that – they want to invest on their own, and that’s terrific.”

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access.

David Carroll, Charlotte-based head of wealth and investment management for Wells Fargo, in January discussed with the Observer the bank’s plans to roll out a robo-advisery service.

“I think it’s a healthy development for the industry,” Carroll said at the time. “Because of technology and because of the evolution of products, we and the industry in general can now offer well-managed, diversified investments at a much lower cost, much simpler than we were able to in the past.”

Wells Fargo earned about 10 percent of its $23 billion of annual profit last year from wealth and investment management, compared with about 59 percent from community banking and 36 percent from wholesale banking.

Robo-advisers typically use algorithms to offer investment advice online with little or no human contact, with customers providing their age, income, risk-tolerance and goals through a smartphone, tablet or computer.

“When you think about who would use robo-advising more often, you think about the millennials,“ Sloan said.

“One of the reasons why it’s not going to fundamentally change the business is, while there are a lot of millennials, they don’t have any money,” he said. “But they like convenience.”